Most historians
of Pentecostalism agree that as a group, “like the holiness people with whom
they were once associated, pentecostals were overwhelmingly uninterested in, if
not contemptuous of, politics,” as Randall J. Stephens argues.[1]
In short, until perhaps the mid-twentieth century, Pentecostals did not have a
political bone in their bodies. As far as presidential elections and local
political controversies are concerned, Stephens is correct. Because of the
“otherworldliness” of early Pentecostals, historians have often isolated their
histories from the larger political world in which Pentecostalism developed.[2]
Yet this assessment should not lead us to believe that early Pentecostals were
significantly distanced from the major political trends and assumptions of the
early twentieth century. A substantial minority of early Pentecostals ascribed
to British-Israelism, the belief that the Anglo-Saxon people are the direct
biological descendants of the ten “lost tribes” of Israel. With the language of
biblical prophetic interpretation, these Pentecostals endorsed and participated
in the larger political program of Anglo-Saxon global expansion and control that
captivated British and American minds at the turn of the twentieth century.

Republican Senator Albert
Beveridge of Indiana told Congress in 1890 that the question of imperialism

is deeper than any question of party politics; deeper than any question of
isolated policy of our country even; deeper even than any question of
constitutional power. It is elemental. It is racial. God has not been preparing
the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but
vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No! He has made us master
organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns.[3]

With its very political and
earthly consequences, this deeply ingrained sense of Anglo-Saxon superiority was
at the heart of imperialism—and it was echoed even by the “otherworldly”
Pentecostals who adhered to British-Israelism.

British-Israel teaching was
peripheral to mainline Christianity, but was in many ways similar to
dispensationalism, another system of biblical prophecy that captured the
attention of many Pentecostals. Historians of Pentecostalism have had little
sympathy for British-Israelism and less understanding of it, and have been
content to relegate the teaching to the miscellaneous details of certain
peculiar individuals.[4]
The allure of the teaching and its influence on early Pentecostalism are
therefore left unnoticed and uninvestigated. Pentecostal British-Israelism is a
story that has not been told.

One issue plaguing our
understanding of the place of British-Israelism in Pentecostalism is the
misleading assumption of Pentecostal political noninvolvement. The other issue
is related to our understanding of British-Israelism itself. Since it is often
described as a religious justification for British imperialism or racialism,
scholars argue that “British-Israelism often appeals to the well-to-do and
patriotic.”[5]
It is true that British-Israelists[6]
counted many among its adherents in the ranks of the royalty and aristocracy for
precisely these reasons, but this does not help us understand its appeal for
early Pentecostals.

By investigating the
British-Israel teachings of three key figures in the development of
Pentecostalism, this essay will attempt to correct our understanding of both
British-Israelism and early Pentecostalism. First, British-Israelism was not
merely a thin religious veneer on imperial ambitions. British-Israelism was in
fact a thorough biblical hermeneutic intended to validate the veracity of
scripture and the faithfulness of God. Second, early Pentecostals were not
allergic to political and earthly affairs. As part of the political milieu of
the early twentieth century, Pentecostals, through British-Israel ideas,
contributed to the discourse of Anglo-Saxon expansionism and imperialism.

British-Israelism: Context
and Beliefs

British-Israelism (also known
as B.I., Anglo-Israelism, and “the identity”) is the belief that the Anglo-Saxon
peoples are the direct biological descendants of the ten tribes of Israel who
never returned to their homeland after the Assyrian exile of the eighth century,
BC. The whereabouts of this “lost” people has entertained and frustrated Bible
teachers and scholars for centuries, but in the mid- to late-nineteenth century,
a small, uncoordinated group of British writers and lecturers declared they had
solved the age-old conundrum. John Wilson’s lectures and subsequent publication
of Our Israelitish Origin (1840) were the beginning and main source of
British-Israelist thought. By the turn of the century, the teaching had prolific
apologists in America as well as England. At the height of its influence in the
early twentieth century, British-Israelism probably claimed two million
adherents, and carried a representative cross-section of the British and
American population.[7]

British-Israelism
was a racial, biological, national, and territorial theory.[8]
According to adherents, an important distinction must be made between the two
kingdoms of God’s chosen people. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was in large
part composed of the descendants of Joseph, to whom had been promised the divine
birthright—becoming many nations. The Southern Kingdom of Judah was in large
part composed of the descendants of Judah, who had been promised the throne, or
the “scepter” of rule. This promise is twofold, with a spiritual and a physical
dimension. From the tribe of Judah came both the Davidic dynasty and the
messianic King, whom Christians confess to be Jesus Christ. From the tribes of
Israel (especially Manasseh and Ephraim) came the promises of a prosperous and
expanding nation. The Northern Kingdom was exiled by the Assyrians in 722 BC,
and the Southern Kingdom was also exiled in 586 BC by the Babylonians. While the
Southern Kingdom was allowed to return from exile in 538 BC, the Northern
Kingdom never returned to their native land. Yet the Hebrew prophets promised
return for both Israel and Judah. Since God is faithful to his promises,
British-Israelists reasoned, the Israelites still may expect their homecoming,
as well as fulfillment of myriad other prophecies spoken directly to Israel.
While common history has described the ten northern tribes as “lost,”
British-Israelists labeled this blasphemy, a giving up on God and his promises.

Through a complex
and convoluted system of biblical interpretation, British-Israelists pieced
together the migration of the Israelites from their exile in Assyria, through
the “Caucasus Passage,” and into northern Europe. In some versions, the tribes
migrated directly to the British Isles. The promise to Joseph’s descendants of
many nations therefore continued its fulfillment in the settlements of Ireland,
Scotland, Wales, and England. This was “Joseph’s birthright.” It was further
realized in the expanding rule of the British Empire.

The promise to
Judah of a kingdom, reiterated to David as a perpetual throne, was also left
intact in spite of exile. The prophet Jeremiah figures importantly as he who is
commissioned by God “to uproot and to tear down.” British-Israelists believed
that Jeremiah fled to Egypt during the Babylonian exile, along with “daughters
of the king,”[9]
allowing for the Davidic dynasty to continue. This remnant then made its way to
Ireland where a descendant of David was reunited with the Israelites, and again
ruled over God’s chosen people. In this scheme, the monarch of Britain is in the
direct lineage of King David.

With regard to race, the
British-Israel theory unequivocally claimed that Anglo-Saxons were the direct
biological continuation of biblical Israel. All the “unfulfilled” prophecies of
the Old Testament could therefore be claimed by this chosen race, which
inhabited the contemporary regions of the British Isles and the United States of
America. The white race was modern-day Israel in the most literal sense:

The conception, and the birth of Jacob and Esau
were also supernatural, for there were “two nations,” two distinct races—a white
child and a red one—Caucasian and Arabic, in one womb; and the manner of their
birth was so supernaturally manipulated, that, as they struggled in the womb,
Jacob held Esau's heel, and thus they were born: the very manner of which, as we
hope to show, is one of the most striking types in all the Word of God. And yet,
none of these events are any more supernatural, nor attended with any greater
manifest power of God, nor is his will any more clearly manifest in them, than
is the transfer of the Sceptre, and the birthright, by dying Jacob, to Judah and
to Joseph.[10]

The desire to put themselves
in the center of the biblical narrative was not wholly self-serving. Like all
Israelites, British-Israelists understood that their privileges implied
responsibilities. British-Israelism had a missionary impulse. As J.H. Allen
wrote, “[T]he Anglo-Saxons are pre-eminently the evangelists of the world.”[11]
Britain had all the rights and duties of biblical Israel because it was biblical
Israel.

Frank Sandford

While not
becoming a Pentecostal himself, Frank Sandford had a direct impact on two of the
most important early Pentecostal leaders: Charles Parham, the originator of the
doctrine of Spirit-baptism with the evidence of speaking in tongues, and A.J.
Tomlinson, the dynamic leader of the Holiness-turned-Pentecostal denomination,
the Church of God (Cleveland, TN).[12]
For his practice of speaking in tongues, divine healing, and reliance upon the
Holy Spirit, as well as his connections to other proto-Pentecostals and early
Pentecostals, Pentecostal historians agree that Sandford is a significant figure
in the rise of Pentecostalism.[13]

In the early 1890s, Sandford
was a promising young minister in the Free Baptist church but was also deeply
unsettled spiritually. Upon returning from a worldwide inspection of Free
Baptist churches, Sandford resigned his lucrative pastorate and began
evangelizing without regular support—a daring move in any age, but striking
during the financial collapse of 1893. After some success in his itinerant
ministry, Sandford established “The Holy Ghost and Us Bible School” in coastal
southern Maine. The community that eventually developed around Sandford became
known as Shiloh.

In his personal life and his
school, Sandford was determined to read and live the Bible as literally as
possible, which led him to strict Sabbatarianism and celebration of Jewish
feasts. He was particularly concerned with the fulfillment of Old Testament
prophecies. Because of the enormity of prophecies still unfulfilled, he could
not bring himself to agree with his dispensational brothers and sisters that all
of the prophecies would be fulfilled for the Jewish people upon their return to
Israel. When George B. Peck, a friend of healing evangelist A.B. Simpson,
introduced Sandford to the British-Israel theory in 1895, he felt that many of
his scriptural questions—particularly concerning Old Testament prophecy—were
answered.[14]
Sandford’s global sojourns—especially through the colonies of the British
Empire—confirmed the truth of the teaching, as his first-hand witness of
Britain’s colonies “inspired [Sandford] with the spiritual certainty of the
Anglo-Israel truth.”[15]

In order to get a firmer
grasp of the teaching, Sandford immersed himself in the writings of Charles A.L.
Totten, the Yale military instructor who wrote volumes on British-Israelism.
After digesting Totten’s arguments, Sandford became convinced that
British-Israelism rescued scripture from irrelevance. As Frank S. Murray,
Sandford’s early biographer explains:

Regardless of the way it has been abused or misconstrued by carnal-minded
advocates, the fact that the English-speaking peoples in general are the blood
descendants of Israel’s ten lost tribes makes the Bible come to life for every
man who understands and accepts it.[16]

British-Israelism would not
remain a matter of private interpretation for Sandford. From 1896, the teaching,
as Murray says, “lent its force and color to all the activities of the Bible
School.”[17]

In 1898, Sandford heard the
Holy Spirit say “Jerusalem next.” He soon began plans for a trip to the Holy
Land. From Jerusalem, Sandford and his companion and student Willard Gleason
composed an extended essay on the topic of British-Israelism entitled “Who God’s
Ancient People Israel Are.” In a purportedly inductive manner, Sandford wrote
that the key to identifying Israel was “to search the Scriptures to ascertain
what God said they were to be.”[18]
After listing the “sevenfold description” of the chosen people from the book of
Genesis, Sandford rhetorically asked, “Now as you glance over the face of the
earth what people comes to your mind as fulfilling the description that we have
given?”[19]
In short, the expanding Empire of the Anglo-Saxon people was proof enough for
Sandford:

The United States is a ‘great’ nation: England is a ‘greater’ nation, ruling
overs sixty colonies and three hundred and fifty millions of people—a great,
dominant power among the nations; and these two, the ‘great’ and the ‘greater’
nations, are of the same blood, and in every particular meet the
sevenfold description of the text. NO OTHER TWO NATIONS ON THE GLOBE MEET THE
DESCRIPTION. THESE TWO DO. OUR SEARCH IS ENDED. The lost is found.[20]

It was more than the search
for the lost ten tribes that was ended in this manifesto; it was also Sandford’s
search for a God who was finally and completely true to his promises in
scripture. His common response to those “fundamentalists” who refused the
British-Israel teaching was “What are they going to do with the Scriptures?”[21]

Although the Empire served as
corroboration of British-Israelism, Sandford also viewed the general prosperity
and military strength of America and Britain as support for biblical blessing.
Beyond the Empire, the victories of both World Wars were proof of which people
served as God’s “battle-axe and weapons of war.”[22]
Butthe power of the Anglo-Saxon nations was not an end in itself.
Sandford saw the two overlapping “Israels” working together in their separate
spheres:

God has used carnal Israel to fight our enemies with, and we have a civil
government in this land beneath which flag we can in peace proclaim the
everlasting gospel. It is wonderful; carnal Israel is to fight real battles, and
let spiritual Israel fight real battles on the battle-field of faith in behalf
of God, and we shall have the same result as they had.[23]

For Sandford, the early
stages of American interventionism and imperialism were more than a spur to
dedication and sacrifice—they were evidence of God’s election and would be of
direct service in spreading the gospel. America as a whole was “carnal Israel,”
which worked in cooperation with Christian believers, or “spiritual Israel,” to
spread the blessings of the gospel.

Like most early
British-Israelists, Sandford did not reject dispensationalism completely,
although the two prophetic systems were at root antithetical. Sandford was
heavily influenced by the premillennial theology of the Dwight L. Moody and the
Niagara Conferences. As with many evangelists and Holiness leaders of this time,
Sandford’s eschatology can be described as “a theological patchwork quilt.”[24]
But Sandford’s task was made more difficult because the optimism and pride
associated with British-Israelism were not easily reconciled with the pessimism
and retreat of dispensational premillennialism. Yet William Hiss describes how
Sandford overcame these tensions, “by viewing Anglo-America as the ‘lost tribes
of Israel,’ stiff-necked, rebellious, deserving God’s punishment, yet still
God’s chosen people and rod for the nations.”[25]
British-Israelists like Sandford often had to correct the false judgment that
they preached divine favoritism. The teaching, in Sandford’s mind, issued both
divine blessing and divine command. Sandford came to the conclusion that “we,
God’s ancient people, must see the world evangelized (for the Scriptures
cannot be broken), [which] dignifies our national existence.”[26]
The eschatological benefits of British-Israel identity made the Anglo-Saxons
primus inter pares:

[I]t will be Israel first, then the Gentiles; it will be the hundred and
forty-four thousand first, and then the countless multitude. That’s the way God
has chosen to work, and we had better work with God.[27]

According to Sandford, the
Anglo-Saxon peoples had biblical blessing as well as biblical mandate. Although
not favored, the Anglo-Saxon people were chosen, and Sandford spoke the
language of British-Israelism to make this explicit and literal. The greatness
of Britain and American on the global scene were self-evident proofs of this
chosenness—literal, direct fulfillment of prophecies regarding Israel. For
Sandford, to deny British-Israel identity was to deny the plain evidence of
scripture, which would call into question both the veracity of God’s word and
the trustworthiness of God himself.

Charles Parham

After spending a number of
weeks at Sandford’s Bible school in Maine and travelling with Sandford on an
evangelism tour of Canada in 1900, Charles Parham returned to Topeka convinced
that glossolalia (speaking in tongues) had not ceased with the passing of the
apostolic era. But unlike Sandford’s community, which practiced glossolalia but
did not attach any specific theological importance to it, Parham’s group would
make it the center of their theological program. Parham was also by this time
won over to Sandford’s British-Israelism, and he claimed to be
nurtured in this teaching
also by the well-known Church of God (Holiness) minister and ardent
British-Israelist, J.H. Allen.[28]

Today’s scholars disagree as
to the meaning and import of Parham’s British-Israelism. As the originator of
Pentecostalism’s most distinct teaching (baptism in the Holy Spirit with initial
evidence of speaking in tongues), Parham has come under closer scrutiny as a
theologian than many of his Pentecostal peers. For one scholar, Parham’s
adherence to British-Israelism—and its white supremacy—is an inseparable
component of his theological vision of Spirit-baptism.[29]
For other more charitable scholars, Parham should be seen as “a man of his
times” concerning his racial mores.[30]
One theologian even argues that within the context of Parham’s expansive
soteriological system, his British-Israelism provides for his “amazingly
optimistic attitude toward the Jews,” and furnishes the material for a positive
Pentecostal theology of religions.[31]

Parham’s adventurous attitude
toward theology was the cause of his fall from Pentecostal prominence around
1907 as much as it was the reason for his initial importance. While he gave to
the burgeoning Pentecostal movement its chief distinctive, Pentecostals in
general would accept none of the other theological gifts Parham had to offer.
His belief in the final annihilation of the wicked (as opposed to the orthodox
view of eternal suffering in hell) and the inclusion of non-Christians in his
soteriological scheme sat along with his British-Israelism as beliefs that did
not enter the Pentecostal mainstream.

Coinciding also with Parham’s
separation from the Azusa Street-stream of Pentecostalism was his aborted
attempt to travel to the Holy Land in search of the Ark of the Covenant. This
strange episode must be understood in light of Parham’s British-Israelism, which
buttressed his support for the Zionist movement:

[W]e studied for years as to what would be the most certain article to turn the
eyes of Jewry homeward. We finally decided that the Ark of the Covenant, the
most precious relic of Jewish history, would cause the Jews to ‘flock like doves
to the window.’ We made a study as to its location….[32]

With a pensive eye on the
eschatological clock, Parham looked for the time when Israel and Judah would
“become one stick.” According to Parham’s chronology, the return of the Jews to
Palestine was the first in a series of end-times events that would facilitate
the inevitable reuniting of “all Israel.”[33]
Like most British-Israelists, Parham envisioned a fraternal relationship with
the Jews. And he mourned over the prophetic fact that “very many of our Jewish
brethren…will accept [the Anti-Christ].” Parham counted a Jewish rabbi among his
friends and spoke with affection of Palestine and its rightful inhabitants.[34]

In many ways,
Parham’s British-Israelism was typical. Parham’s earliest book in 1902
contained essays on “The Tribe of Judah,” “The Ten Lost Tribes Discovered,” and
“Queen Victoria’s Descent from Adam.”[35]In the pages of The Apostolic Faith, the official organ for his
movement, Parham frequently wrote on British-Israel themes. He also published
articles by other British-Israelists, spreading to his readers the notions that
the word “Tutons [sic]” is an old Gothic term meaning Ten-tribes,[36]
and that the Britons, being biologically God’s children, have been throughout
history the people most eager to receive and most successful in spreading the
gospel message.[37]
In a collection of selected sayings on British-Israelism, Parham told his
readers that the teaching “provides a Master Key to the Bible, and to Prophecy
and History,” “kills pessimism,” provides “the best means for
Interdenominational Platform,” and is “THE cure for Communism, Sabbath
Desecration, Class Antagonism, Strikes and kindred evils.”[38]

According to
Parham, the British-Israel teaching was neither peripheral nor optional: “I do
not think that any Full Gospel preacher ought to longer delay in acquainting
himself with this subject as I believe it belongs with the Full Gospel message
and that the message of the last day must include this subject or we are not
preaching the full gospel.”[39]
British-Israelism was the only option for those who wished to remain faithful to
scripture. With the teaching in hand, “the Old Testament will become a new book
to you full of vital importance and interest.”[40]
God’s faithfulness was proven by the historical record. To defend the belief
that British royalty inherited the scepter of Judah, Parham wrote, “Let us trace
this sceptre; to find that not only does God keep His Word, but by so doing has
wrought the romance of history.”
[41] Like other British-Israelists, Parham was deeply
concerned about the attack of the “infidel” who, when comparing biblical
prophecy to the pages of history, concluded bluntly, “Your God has lied.”[42]

The exalted
language with which the Bible described Israel convinced Parham that only one
group of people fit the description. Although some theories placed the lost
tribes in Asia, Russia, and even pre-colonial America, for Parham, it was
self-evident that such races could not be true Israel: “the fallacy of this
theory is proved by the word of God which says: He will make them the head and
not the tail of nations.”[43]
As with Sandford, the economic, military, and political strength of Britain and
America were the trump card. In fact, Parham saw the multi-faceted power of the
Empire as the most important proof of the British-Israel truth:

All the prophecies concerning these
two nations concerning the sons of Jacob are fulfilled in these two nations
[England and the United States], who stand almost inseparable united as brother
John and Johnathan [sic].

Some of these prophecies: ‘They
should be the head and not the tail of nations; ‘Never overcome except by their
own people; where [sic, were] to be the Mistress of the seas; Possess the
gate ways [sic] of their enemies; which accounts for the possession of
Gibraltar, Suez and Panama Canal; they were to possess the gold and silver and
precious stones of the world. This accounts for the U.S. acquiring Alaska and
the way the boor [sic] war was settled.[44]

Since no other nations matched the
biblical description, it was clear to Parham that the English-speaking nations
were the lost tribes of Israel. Parham saw imperial progress as proof of
British-Israel doctrine, but this was not a blanket approval of everything done
in the name of Empire:

Ere long Justice with flaming sword
will step from behind the pleading form of Mercy to punish a nation which has
mingled the blood of thousands of human sacrifices upon the altar of her
commercial and imperialistic expansion.[45]

Parham’s British-Israelism coupled
with his evangelical-prophetic stance against sin produced a tension-filled mix
of approval and condemnation of imperial activities.

Parham’s connection to J.H.
Allen must stand at the center of any discussion of his British-Israelism. Allen
wrote the highly influential Judah’s Scepter and Joseph’s Birthright
(1901), which laid out the basic biblical, historical, and genealogical argument
for the teaching, and which Parham ardently promoted. The essays of this “dear
bishop”[46]
were featured often in the pages of Parham’s periodical—sufficient evidence to
place Parham within the major stream of American British-Israelism. What has not
been mentioned by other historians is that beginning February 1927 Allen was
named associate editor of Parham’s magazine, and remained so until Parham’s
death in January 1929.[47]
In 1920, Allen was a featured speaker at the Anglo-Israel Congress in London,
and he related his experiences to readers of The Apostolic Faith.[48]
Inone essay of
idiosyncratic biblical interpretation, Allen noted that Jesus’ only
post-resurrection miracle was a miraculous catch of 153 fish. Having determined
that King George was the 152nd generation from Adam (making the heir
apparent the 153rd generation), Allen declared that “the end of
fishing—of work—had come.”[49]
His numerology combined with his British-Israelism allowed him to declare that
Christ’s return was imminent and could be expected during the reign of Britain’s
next monarch. While Allen was not Pentecostal, his British-Israelist teaching
reached numbers of first-generation Pentecostals, and carried the endorsement of
the “Projector of the Apostolic Faith Movement.”

The common claim made by
scholars that British-Israelism has no soteriological significance is true in
general, but was not the case for Parham. As Leslie Callahan has demonstrated,
Parham’s British-Israelism had distinct eschatological and soteriological
significance. In Parham’s scheme, humans met one of three fates: eternal
heavenly life, perfect earthly life, or utter destruction. Heavenly life belongs
only to those who receive Christ and live holy lives. But this category was
further narrowed by a racial stipulation. Parham wrote, “We believe it to be an
impossibility for any one [sic] to have adoption, to-wit: the redemption,
or membership in the Church all of gold which is His Body, who are not of His
own blood, the seed of Abraham.”[50]The more elite category, the
Bride of Christ, “must be chosen from among his own blood relations, His own
house Israel, and no one who has not Israelitish blood in their veins will have
in part or lot in the [B]ride of Christ (there seemingly will be people from all
races.)”[51]
What exactly Parham meant by “there will seemingly be people from all
races” is difficult to discern, but it has something to do with his belief that
the blood of Israel has made its way also into other races: “[B]y the
inter-marriage of the Israelitsh nations, Israel's blood has found its way among
the races.”[52]
For Parham, the broad strokes of salvation were easily discerned along racial
lines, but he admitted that the blood of Abraham—which predisposes one toward
right belief—was present in some members of all races.

Perfect earthly
life, according to Parham, belongs to those who had not accepted the Gospel, but
who during the Judgment Age (the era following the millennium) are deemed worthy
by their works.[53]
In this group, Parham placed infants, heathens, and members of “formalistic
churches,” which he primarily identified with members of Catholic
(non-Anglo-Saxon) nations. Callahan astutely argues that what these three groups
have in common is an “inferior capacity for accepting the truth, which meant
that they were not as accountable as others.”[54]
With regard to heathens and members of formalistic churches, what they also have
in common is a racial distinction in being, according to Parham, not
descended from the tribes of Israel.

Utter
destruction is the lot of those who hear and reject the gospel, backslide, or
are otherwise reprobate. One can discern the contours of Parham’s theology of
race in the following quote:

Today the descendants of Abraham are the Hindus, the Japanese, the high German,
the Danes (tribe of Dan), the Scandinavians, the Anglo-Saxon and their
descendants in all parts of the world. These are the nations who have acquired
and retained experimental salvation and deep spiritual truths; while the
Gentiles—the Russians, the Greek, the Italian, the low German, the French, the
Spanish and their descendants in all parts are formalists scarce ever obtaining
the knowledge and truth discovered by Luther,—that of justification by faith or
of the truth taught by Wesley, sanctification by faith; while the heathen—the
Black race, the Brown race, the Red race, the Yellow race, in spite of
missionary zeal and effort are nearly all heathen still; but will, in the
dawning of the coming age, be given to Jesus for an inheritance.”[55]

For Parham, race was not unrelated
to salvation, although it did not determine it completely. But for him, history
had proven that Israel was distinguished not only by its worldwide dominance,
but by its embrace of gospel truths. Parham’s British-Israelism also helped him
resolve the questions of scripture’s veracity and God’s faithfulness. Informed
by his British-Israelism, his theological speculation and biblical
interpretation served to support the prevailing attitude of Anglo-Saxon
superiority and to justify continued British and American global dominance.

George Hawtin

Though British-Israelism
peaked during the height of the British Empire in the early twentieth century,
it continued to exert an influence in Pentecostal circles throughout the
century. As we have seen, Frank Sandford continued to hold the belief through
both world wars, constantly adapting his prophetic interpretations to fit new
global-political circumstances. The belief showed strength in some Pentecostal
circles after World War II, as seen in the work of George Hawtin.

In 1948, a revival began in
an independent Pentecostal Bible school in Saskatchewan. This movement was led
by George and Ernest Hawtin and Percy Hunt, former leaders in the Pentecostal
Assemblies of Canada (the Assemblies of God counterpart in Canada). Hawtin’s
school began displaying many of the practices common in early Pentecostal Bible
schools: fasting, long hours in prayer, and intense study of the Scriptures.
They believed they had received a revelation from God regarding the outpouring
of latter rain—the early days of Pentecostalism being downgraded to “early
rain.” Along with this conviction was a renewed interest in the practice of
laying on of hands, which they believed imparted Spirit-baptism, and a range of
spiritual gifts and offices. While the movement was disowned by the major North
American Pentecostal denominations, it had an immense impact on the post-war
Pentecostal healing revivals and the later development of the charismatic
movement.[56]

Standing at the
center of the movement and its subsequent development among independent
Pentecostals was George Hawtin. He published his British-Israel doctrines in his
periodical the Page, and later in book form as a series of articles.
Hawtin’s British-Israelism focused on the grand plan of God. “[T]his seeming
tragic division between the house of Israel and the house of Judah was after
all ordained of God.”[57]
Although commonly referred as to as “lost,” the people of Israel, Hawtin wrote,
“are not lost! God would not be God if they were not at this very
moment fulfilling every detail of his covenant with them…”[58]
For Hawtin and other British-Israelists, the power and reliability of God was at
stake in their identification of Israel.

Hawtin used the
same logic as Sandford to “prove” the identity of the Anglo-Saxon people. By
process of elimination based on thirteen “marks of identification,” only one
group fit the description as outlined in scripture. These proofs were all facets
of the economic, expansionistic and political supremacy of the English-speaking
peoples. Among the marks: “I will make thy name great,” (Gen. 12:2) which
Hawtin said was fulfilled only in the name of Great Britain; “Israel was
to be exceedingly fruitful and very populous”; and “Israel shall rule over many
nations, but none shall rule over her.”[59]
British-Israelist glorying in the triumphs of Anglo civilization was not
dampened by the dissolution of the Empire. Hawtin, writing after 1967, was able
to reassess biblical prophecy in light of the new political situation. “In Eph.
2:12 Paul speaks of Israel as a commonwealth,” wrote Hawtin.[60]
In fact, the changing global political map was all part of God’s plan: “The
present crumbling of the British Commonwealth and Empire, together with the
dreadful weakening of the power of the Unites States of America, is definitely
foretold in scripture and is one of the principal signs that we are at the end
of the age when all things shall be finished.”[61]

The dark side of
British-Israelism was its readiness to disparage non-Anglo-Saxons. “[N]ever in
history has a tribe of white savages been discovered,” wrote Hawtin.[62]
The implication was clear: God’s favor was written in the evidence of
civilization:

Why then should students of scripture waste their valuable time searching for
Israel among the primitive and poverty-stricken tribes and nations when God’s
word declares that His covenant people are to be the leading nations of
the world and this especially so in the last days?[63]

The racial theories Hawtin
espoused were more vicious than those of earlier British-Israelists. In 1974, he
published The Living Creature: Origin of the Negro. Hawtin also added the
curious notion that “a large portion of the house of Israel had already moved
into the British Isles centuries before the Assyrian captivity began…”[64]
According to Hawtin, the Israelite population grew rapidly during Solomon’s day,
and began colonizing. Hawtin was thus able to push the greatness of the
Anglo-Saxon race even further back in time: “The kind of people who could build
Stonehenge and the Avebury Circle must have been possessed of the wisdom of
Solomon.”[65]
While this interpretation did not alter the basic contention that Anglo-Saxons
were the superior race, it does demonstrate the flexibility of the
British-Israelism system, able to accommodate any scriptural-historical
arguments that support the main contention: the biological descent of the
Anglo-Saxon people from the tribes of Israel.

In the
mid-twentieth century, the fluidity and flexibility of British-Israelism
resulted in its occasional but increasing pairing with overt anti-Semitism.[66]
While Hawtin was not an anti-Semite, the tendency of British-Israelism to favor
the Israelites (Anglo-Saxons) at the expense of the Jews is evident in
Hawtin, and is grounded in the basic assertion that the Christian faith of
Anglo-Saxons is further evidence of divine favor, while the Jewish rejection of
Christ is a sign of disfavor. The distinction between the house of Israel and
the house of Judah was not simply a genealogical exercise:

Israel was to be a people glorying in Christ…Though the Jew has always been an
enemy of Christ and as a people has maintained her anti-Christ attitude for two
thousand years, the opposite is true of the house of Israel…It is clearly
evident here that Israel does not refer to the anti-Christ Jew, but to
the house of Israel, for the Jew has never honored Christ.[67]

According to Hawtin, the
Jews’ rejection of Christ was prima facie confirmation that the Jews were
not the subject of latter biblical prophetic fulfillment. In Hawtin’s
definition, the “house of Israel” had to be a people historically receptive to
the gospel. This people was, of course, European, and particularly,
English-speaking. By following the common British-Israel convention of
distinguishing between Israel and the Jews, but moving beyond genealogical or
political arguments, Hawtin combined the British-Israel theory with the older
tradition of anti-Semitism expressed in terms of the Jews’ rejection of Christ.
Hawtin’s language shows a clear move from Parham’s philo-Semitic
British-Israelism, although the same basic theory is at the root of each.

While Hawtin’s
British-Israelism evinced a stronger argument for the supremacy of the
Anglo-Saxons as well as a creeping anti-Semitism, his concerns were in harmony
with all British-Israelists: God is faithful and God’s word is trustworthy. All
of history is under God’s command, including, importantly, the history of the
races.

Conclusions and Suggestions

Pentecostals have generally
favored the dispensational-premillennial theory of prophetic interpretation.
Their concern for a common-sense approach to scripture that assured them of the
materialistic fulfillment of biblical prophecies and the imminent return of
Christ were served well by this hermeneutic.[68]
These concerns could also be met, however, by British-Israelism, which
contributed to or betrayed some Pentecostals’ interest in the global politics of
their day—particularly with regard to the imperial, military, and economic power
of the Anglo-Saxon nations. This was different from the “signs and wonders”
political fascination of dispensational premillennialism, because British-Israel
prophetic interpretation placed the racial and national identity of its
adherents at the center of their biblical hermeneutic and their interpretation
of the world around them. While most premillennialists spoke of political
developments in terms of “others”—the rise of the Anti-Christ, the importance of
Jewish homecoming, and the mysterious identities of players in
Armageddon—British-Israelists wrote themselves directly into the most important
political events. In this way, they did not retreat from the world as is often
thought. On the contrary, they looked for every way possible to place
themselves—their nation and their race—in the center of the biblically-foretold
global drama.

Sufficient work is yet to be
done to determine the role of British-Israelism in Pentecostalism. Specifically,
one cannot yet be sure how influential British-Israelism was among the
rank-and-file of Pentecostal believers. But the leaders explored here suggest
that significant numbers of Pentecostals were affected by the teaching. For
instance, while Parham ceased to exert national influence on the movement after
1907, he still had thousands of followers across the Midwest at the time of his
death in 1929, and he continued to publish his British-Israelist views through
the last months of his life. Similarly, scholars are now beginning to appreciate
the influence of the Latter Rain Movement and George Hawtin’s ministry on North
American and international Pentecostalism.[69]
Hawtin’s voluminous publishing record suggests a significant readership. His
periodical, the Page, was published for over 20 years, and over 30 books
have been compiled from his writings.[70]
A promising trail for further scholarship seems to be the connection to John
Alexander Dowie and his Zion City community. As is well known, Parham was deeply
influenced by Dowie’s ministry, and in Zion City he gained many converts to
Pentecostalism—a number of whom would go on to become important in the
Pentecostal story. Charles Jennings, the current Pentecostal compiler of
British-Israelist names and writings, argues that Dowie had British-Israelist
sympathies.[71]
There is evidence that prominent Zion residents-turned Pentecostals John G. Lake
and F.F. Bosworth, along with Gordon Lindsay (the son of Zion residents) were at
one time British-Israelists.[72]
A Canadian-Pacific Northwest concentration also seems likely, which is not
surprising, given the strength of the British-Israelism in Canada, and growth of
the British-Israel Association of Greater Vancouver from the late 1930s.[73]
From the time in 1907 when Florence Crawford left the Azusa Street Mission to
build a Pentecostal church in Portland, the Pacific Northwest was also an area
of strength for Pentecostals. At this point, however, only tentative suggestions
can be made about the strength of British-Israelism among average Pentecostals.

Still, this investigation
into three figures in the Pentecostal story challenges received notions about
the political noninvolvement of Pentecostals. Insofar as the otherworldly met
the worldly in their interpretation of biblical prophecy, Pentecostals—as much
as any in the early and mid-twentieth century—could echo the prevailing
political sentiments of their day and add their voices to the chorus of imperial
expansion and racial superiority. In the intersection of Pentecostalism and
British-Israelism, we also find prevailing notions about British-Israelism being
challenged. The movement cannot be sung in the monotone of imperialism, since
the Pentecostals who espoused the teaching defended it as the only way to
maintain the reliability of scripture. According to British-Israelists, if one
did not read scripture in this way it was full of logical holes and unfulfilled
prophecies. If the scriptures were not trustworthy, God was not faithful. In
George Hawtin’s words, “God would not be God.” Those who insisted that Old
Testament prophecies were to be fulfilled in the Jews or in the church
metaphorically only summoned atheism from those who read scripture closely.
British-Israelists never tired of referring to Tom Paine and Robert Ingersoll in
this regard.

Pentecostals always
interpreted the world around them in biblical and eschatological terms. Often,
this translated into a separation from the political system and social mores of
their day. But these same theological concerns could also be combined with and
contribute to pervasive political thought. In the case of Pentecostal
British-Israelists, the otherworldly met the this-worldly in ways that make
clear that Pentecostals did in fact have at least one political bone in their
bodies.

[2] Elsewhere Grant Wacker is even blunter: “Politics
never ranked as more than a dot on the horizon of Pentecostals’
consciousness.” “Early Pentecostals and the Almost Chosen People,”
Pneuma 19, no. 2 (Fall 1997): 144. While Wacker nuances the
“otherworldliness” of Pentecostals with their pragmatism and their
premillennial obsession with global politics, British-Israelism does not
fit neatly into either category. Wacker mentions British-Israelism (160,
n. 70) but subsumes this under patriotism born of “emotional necessity.”
(166)

[3] Cited in “Albert Beveridge Defends U.S.
Imperialism, 1900,” in Major Problems in the Gilded Age and
Progressive Era, second edition, ed. Leon Fink (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 2001), 272.

[4] This is true of surveys, monographs and
biographical works. See for example Walter J. Hollenweger,
Pentecostalism: Origin and Developments Worldwide (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson Publishers, 1997), 21-23, 185; James Robinson,
Pentecostal Origins: Early Pentecostalism in Ireland in the Context of
the British Isles (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2005), 114, 117, 119,
159-160, 265; and Wacker, Heaven Below, 115. Charles Parham’s
biographer gives only a few pages to his British-Israelism. James R.
Goff, Fields White Unto Harvest: Charles F. Parham and the Missionary
Origins of Pentecostalism (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas
Press, 1988), 57-58, 101-102, 131. George Jeffreys’s biographer analyzes
his British-Israel beliefs only in terms of its impact on the leader’s
split with the Elim church. Desmond Cartwright, The Great
Evangelists: The Lives of George and Stephen Jeffreys (Basingstoke:
Marshall Pickering, 1986).

[6] I prefer to use “British-Israelist” to refer to
adherents of British-Israelism, as opposed to the more common
“British-Israelite.” As far as I know, I stand alone among scholars in
this preference. While British-Israelists often use the term
“British-Israelite” when labeling themselves, I find it awkward and
misleading. According to British-Israel teaching, all Anglo-Celt-Saxon
peoples are descendants of the tribes of Israel, and so are all
“Israelites” in this sense. Therefore, it seems more appropriate to me
to label those who adhere to British-Israelism as
“British-Israelists,” much as adherents of socialism are socialists
and adherents of nationalism are nationalists. In part, I feel
justified in bucking convention because the scholarly work on
British-Israelism is still so small.

[7] Eric Reisenauer, “British-Israel: Racial Identity
in Imperial Britain, 1870-1920” (Ph.D. diss., Loyola University of
Chicago, 1997), 147. The figure of two million is reiterated by an
opponent of British-Israelism in Carl G. Howie, “The Bible and Modern
Religions: British Israelism and Pyramidology, “Interpretation
11, no. 3 (1957): 314. Of course, reliable statistics for a movement
with no central authority and no denominational structure are
impossible.

[10] J.H. Allen, Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s
Birthright: An Analysis of the Prophecies of Scripture in Regard to the
Royal Family of Judah and the Many Nations of Israel (Merrimac, MA:
Destiny Publishers, 1902), 43.

[28] Michael Barkun, Religion and the Racist Right
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 20-21. In 1926,
Parham wrote, “While in California we had the great pleasure of meeting
Bishop J.H. Allen in his home in Pasadena. We had known him for 35 years
and from him many years ago had obtained the foundation truths of many
things we are preaching today. Especially the wonderful message of
Anglo-Israel.” Charles Parham, “A Pleasurable Meeting,” Apostolic
Faith 2, no. 4 (April 1926): 11.

[37] “Christianity was brought to the early Britains [sic]
direct from Jerusalem by the apostles of Christ shortly after the
passion, and as early as 165 A.D. had become the National religion of
the country.” “The Lost Tribes of Israel Found in Britain,” Apostolic
Faith 1, no. 7 (October 1925): 17.

[47] When Apostolic Faith was revived about a
year after Parham’s death, his wife Sarah became editor. Allen was no
longer listed as associate editor. Allen died in May 1930, so it is
unclear if his relationship with Parham’s Apostolic Faith network was
limited to his association with Parham, although this appears to be the
case.

[55] Parham, Voice Crying the Wilderness, 107.
The section titled “The Tribe of Judah,” was reprinted in Apostolic
Faith 2, no. 9 (September 1926): 10-13. In 1899, he wrote
essentially the same thing: “The Old Testament distinction of the
peoples of the earth remain [sic] almost the same to-day. The Hebrews,
Jews and various descendants of the ten tribes—the Anglo-Saxons, High
Germans, Danes (Dan), Swedes, Hindoos [sic], Japanese, and the Hindoo-Japanese
of Hawaii, and these possess about all the spiritual power of the world.
The Gentiles—French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Russian, and Turkish.
These are formalistic, and so are their descendants in all parts of the
world. Heathen are mostly heathen still—the Negro, Malay, Mongolian, and
Indian.” Apostolic Faith (April 14, 1899). Cited in Callahan,
“Redeemed or Destroyed,” 211-212, n. 36.

[56] For the history of the Latter Rain Movement and
its connection to subsequent religious movements, see Richard Riss,
Latter Rain: The Latter Rain Movement of 1948 and the Mid-twentieth
Century Evangelical Awakening (Ontario: Honeycomb Visual
Productions, 1987).

[68] Of course, one can detect the irony of the
Fundamentalist “common sense” approach to scriptures, for while always
insisting that the interpretation of scripture is accessible to every
believer, dispensationalist teachers made their adherents extremely
dependent on their particular grid of interpretation. Dispensationalism
and British-Israelism are anything but inductive. See Timothy Weber,
“The Two-Edged Sword: The Fundamentalist Use of the Bible,” in The
Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History, ed. Nathan O. Hatch
and Mark A. Noll(New York: Oxford University Press, 1982),
101-120.

[69] See for example D. William Faupel, “The New Order
of the Latter Rain: Restoration or Renewal?” and Mark Hutchinson, “The
Latter Rain Movement and the Phenomenon of Global Return,” in Winds
from the North: Canadian Contributions to the Pentecostal Movement,
ed. Michael Wilkinson and Peter Althouse (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 239-284.

[70] The current distributor of Hawtin’s writings,
Dimensions of Truth, claims, and a search of the WorldCat database
confirms, 34 books published under Hawtin’s name.
http://www.dimensionsoftruth.org/other-writings/george-r-hawtin/
(accessed June 25, 2012);
http://firstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSFETCH?fetchtype=searchresults:next=html/records.html:bad=error/badfetch.html:resultset=3:format=BI:recno=31:numrecs=10:entitylibrarycount=4:sessionid=fsapp6-54266-h3vt3c8s-tu0ri9:entitypagenum=14:0
(accessed June 25, 2012).